


The Hidden Agenda

by coplins



Series: Packrunners [16]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha/Omega, Animal Instincts, Animalistic Behavior, Dean and Food, Developing Friendships, I can't believe that was a tag XD, M/M, Scent Marking, Scents & Smells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 23:26:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13421856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coplins/pseuds/coplins
Summary: Dean is enjoying a new friendship. But maybe there's something else going on under the surface too?





	The Hidden Agenda

**Author's Note:**

> Morphological species like these evolve at a MUCH greater speed than we. We've established that, right? Well. That opens up to endless possibilities for me. So I figured we'd get to know somebody similar to our boys but still a lot more different than they think.
> 
> Also, here we have our Dean in a nutshell, running from danger but going back to bring the food XD:
> 
>  

* * *

Dean’s hand shoot out to stop his opponent from scraping the pile of buttons towards himself. When it doesn’t stop the hand from retracting with the buttons Dean lets his claws come out part-way to dig into the back of the hand without breaking skin. “Not so fast there, buddy. I caught you cheating, so you didn’t win.” He taps his own cards lying on the table with his free hand to underline his point. The hand under his shoot out its own set of full claws, curved and wickedly sharp, cracking a button straight in two digging into the table underneath. “Dude. We’re playing for fucking buttons. This is a contest of skill, not a fight for the price.” His opponent flares and drops fangs. Dean sniggers. “Nu-uh. You think making me horny is gonna change the fact that I’m a better poker player than you? Forget it, Sash.” 

Sasha, the Siberian Alpha, sniffs the air, catches lack of fear and the faint beginning of arousal in Dean’s scent. He grins, retracting his hand without the buttons. “Fair enough.” 

“Yeah. When I cheat you don’t catch me at it,” Dean remarks with a cheeky smirk and a wink. 

Sasha sniggers. “True. You hungry? We've played for two hours now. Is time to eat, no?” 

“Sure. I caught a coupla seagulls on my way here. We can eat those. They’re in my bag,” Dean answers and starts putting away the buttons they’ve used as chips. 

“Is good. How you get them?” Sasha wants to know as he gets up. 

“Throwing stones. I also pounce sometimes, but that works better with pigeons. Gulls are fucking suspicious.” Sasha passes behind Dean’s back, stroking his neck with his claws as he passes, causing goosebumps and a shiver. The Siberian’s claws are razor sharp at their points and underside. Getting petted by them is fucking edgeplay in itself. Even such a light grazing as this leaves thin, cat-scratch lines. Dean’s own claws are sharp too, but doesn’t have that blade-like seam on their underside. Instead, they have very fine barbs, making their grip on anything they penetrate stronger. You can’t really see the barbs, they’re so small, but you feel them if you stroke a finger along them outwards towards the top. It helps Dean when he’s climbing, or holding onto an animal trying to get away during a hunt. Dean thinks Sasha’s claws must be useless for climbing since the sharp seam is on the underside. Although, they’d more easily dig deeper and cause fatal wounds than Dean’s will. 

Sasha goes to retrieve Dean’s haul and bring it to the kitchen area along one wall. He chuckles. “They’re smarter than they look. You want to keep the feathers?” 

“Nah. I’m all stocked. You need help cooking?” Dean asks while he cleans off the rest of the table, reshuffling and putting away the deck of cards, folding the green tablecloth. Sasha shakes his head, making short work of preparing the birds, using his claws on one hand instead of a knife. 

This is the first time Dean’s been in the Siberian’s apartment. They’d developed quite a friendship in the short time since it struck Dean that he had a phone, and he had a phonenumber, and decided to put those two together. They’ve met up on several occasions. To talk. So far, that’s it. They’ve played chess in the park, foraged together, and raided the bulky waste shed in a gated community. Being in Sasha’s apartment Dean knows the last one was definitely only something the Alpha did to humour him. The big studio apartment is located high up in a high rise, one wall nothing but a huge window with a breathtaking view of the city. The ‘bedroom’ is set apart by being raised on a dais. Other than that the kitchen takes up part of a wall―only top-notch equipment―the desk in one corner holds no less than three (!) computers, the TV is huge, placed over the fireplace (!), the couch wickedly comfortable, and the oil paintings on the wall all depict either the sea or a landscape Sasha calls the tundra. Storage is built into the walls or furniture. The huge rug is thick and soft enough to sleep on. The table only holds four places, and the whole apartment smells faintly akin to sun warm pine needles. And that foreign scent of Sasha himself, of course. 

“So, how did your test go? It was today, was it not?” Sasha asks. He’s making a pleased, low-frequency rumble just barely above what’s audible. Whenever he does that it resonates deep within Dean. It reminds him of dad. Not because it’s fatherly, but because it’s pack and it’s Patriarchal. 

“Yup. I think I did well. I won’t get to know the results until Monday when Dick… Dick, the scentless guy I told you about? Anyway, he’s gonna go through my result then have me in for an interview first thing on Monday. He said that most likely I’ll be looking at a new position and a raise, so that's nice.” 

“Were you nervous?” 

“Nah, man. The tests were to test my current knowledge and skills. What's to be nervous about? Besides, I like my current job. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.” 

Sasha chuckles. “Yes. Good attitude. Did your mate tell you he hired me and my crew to do the security at your building?” 

“He’s not my mate, and no. He didn’t. So we’ll be workmates, huh? Cool.” 

“Pfft. He’s your mate. I’m not noseblind.” Sasha makes a dismissive hand wave. 

“Dude. We might become mates. But I’ve got a date with a guy from a pack and he’s bringing his brothers. I can’t mate with Michael in case these guys prove a better fit for me.” 

Sasha scoffs while putting the prepared birds in the oven. He’s wickedly fast at the whole de-feathering thing. It looks to Dean as if he skinned the birds rather than plucked them. “One mate. Many mates. Many mates is good. Cubs need strong pack. You mate pretty little boy Alpha, you mate other pretty little Alpha boys. No problem.” 

Dean could go on arguing but instead he gets stuck on another detail. “Aha!” He exclaims triumphantly. “I knew it!” 

“What?” 

“I told my little brother I met a Siberian and he told me what he had read about you guys. Amongst other things he said you lived alone and roamed. I’ve been thinking about that because it didn’t seem right to me. I believe you must have been Packrunners. Because if I lived in a frozen wasteland with little to no food, I’d send my pack in every direction to hunt and forage. We’d meet up regularly to help keep the pack fed, and if we found large game we'd call to each other for help.” 

Sasha purrs a deep, satisfied purr. “I told you, you have good head. Good mate material. Good enough to put cub in belly.” Sasha stops what he’s doing to turn his head and scrutinize Dean thoughtfully with those black-framed silvery eyes. His lips pull up into a smirk on one side, flashing a hint of a teethed canine. “In fact, I think I will…” 

Dean chuckles, cheeks heating up. “Sash, buddy, it doesn’t work that way,” he refutes. It’s embarrassing how he’s getting slick and turned on at the mere mention of it. The truth is, with an Alpha like Sasha it _does_ kinda work that way. Imposing, strong, graceful, smart, with a number of attractive traits you’d want your kits to inherit. Bright flare, effortless shifting, long fangs, strong scenting abilities and good hearing. Sasha’s the kind of Alpha who you, if they do what Lucifer had done to Dean that first time, drop your pants and hope they knot you, even if they don’t stick around to raise the kit. They offer a genetic health insurance to the baby. Dad had the same thing going for him. Dean had heard several Omegas say ‘We don’t need a condom’ to him over the years, even if they were fully aware it was only a temporary thing. (Which, come to think of it, makes Dean wonder about Adam.) Sure, what makes somebody get on your ‘exception to the rule’ list is not the same for everybody. It’s more based on life experiences and what you’ve seen your parents/pack prefer and act like. It’s completely different from the attraction you feel for a potential mate. It’s the difference between ‘I need _you_ ’, like with Cas, and ‘I need your _genes_ ’. Dean’s not all that happy about feeling the second attraction category. 

“Sure it does. Not yet. Pack not strong enough to raise cub yet. Later.” Sasha waves it off and goes back to cooking. Sometimes Dean’s not sure if he’s joking or not. Maybe it’s a language thing. When Sasha’s relaxed his accent gets more prominent and his grammar goes to shit. Even the sounds from his breastbone tract has a slightly different cadence. 

“Whatever, man. I know you're more into Alphas anyway.” 

“What makes you say that?” Sasha asks, clearly amused. 

“Because you know I’d take your knot in a heartbeat just for the fun of it, and you haven’t made a move on me except for being a teasing shit. But you were hardcore flirting with Michael. And then there was that Alpha in the park. And the other one with the blue van. I can put two and two together.” Dean’s not insulted in any way. He likes Sasha, sure, and he’d gladly fool around with him just to know what that weird dick would feel like. But if Sasha isn’t into it? It’d ruin all the fun and Dean really appreciates this growing friendship. 

Sasha laughs and shakes his head. “Not for the reason you think, Dean. I don’t know if you noticed, but I come a lot more than your kind. Even more if I’m fully knotted in someone. I stay knotted for longer too. You’ve got, what? 20 minutes? 30? Put full pressure on my knot and you’re stuck for one or two hours. I sleep with an Omega the condom tends to break. With Alphas I don’t risk knocking anyone up. Simple as that.” 

“Two _hours_? Fuck, that’s a long time.” 

“Mhm.” Sasha had been chopping vegetables that he now puts in a pan that goes in the oven too. He washes his hands, gets two beers from the fridge, opens them and comes back to the table. “But unlike you, our Omegas were only fertile during their Heats. Their pre-heat lasted _much_ longer but their actual Heat only lasted about two hours. Plus they had only one Heat a year so cub would be born early spring.” He puts one beer in front of Dean and passes behind him, once again caressing his neck with his claws like the teaser he is. Dean shivers. It almost enough to distract him from something he reacted on. Almost. 

Sasha sits down on a chair and stretches his legs out under the table. The low hum of his all-is-well going strong. 

“You speak in past tense. ...Are you the last of your kind?” The thought makes Dean sad. 

Sasha’s unbothered. He shrugs a shoulder and pulls a sturgeon face. “I doubt it. I hope not. But I've grown weary of looking for others. Our lifestyle is dead. I've adapted to new ways of living many times. That's why I live when others don't. I'm sure some others will have adapted too.” 

Dean takes a sip of the beer looking at Sasha curiously. “Sam said your kind never revealed anything about yourself?” 

Sasha snorts. “Eyy. You ask me anything after killing my mate and cubs while you're whipping my back to a bloody mess, I'll tell you jack shit. But you? You trade food for food,” he gestures with his head towards the oven, “truth for truth, and trust for trust. I talk. You get what I'm sayin?” 

“Yeah. I feel ya. So what have you done since you left your home territory?” 

Sasha makes a sturgeon face. “It was war. I do what you do in war. I fight. I kill.” 

“For what side?” 

Sasha smirks and rubs his thumb against two fingers indicating money. A mercenary. He lets his eyes go back to normal and takes a swig of his beer. “I had much anger. They came, killed pack, killed everyone and took territory. Ate all prey. Too many to fight alone. I had to choose. Stay, and die trying to take as many of them with me, or leave and hopefully find a new pack before the bond had faded, to live. I chose life. There’s no coming back from death, you get what I’m sayin?” 

“I thought you formed permanent mating bonds? With a bite?” 

“There are no such thing. Only permanent bonds that form are in here.” Sasha taps his chest over the heart with a fist and takes a swig of his beer. “The bite…” He purses his lips and looks at the ceiling in thought. “Yes. It does make the scent last longer. Amongst other things. It was necessary since we were separated from our mates for many months sometimes. Your kind has fast reproduction. Like rats. We, not so much. You also get hit much worse by grief when you lose your mate. We feel grief acutely too, but it’s less likely to kill us. You were raised in pack, correct?” 

“Yeah.” 

“You know what siderunner is?” 

“Yeah. I’ve been a siderunner.” 

“Ah. Then you’ll have no problem understanding this. Our packs,” Sasha makes a sweeping motion over the table, palm down, to demonstrate his point. “All like siderunners.” 

That makes perfect sense to Dean. When he stuck around town after he left dad’s house he’d regularly checked in to make sure everyone was alright. He’d drop off food he’d hunted and foraged, bring news, and tell them about what he’d seen and experienced on his ever increasingly long explorations of the world around them. A siderunner belongs to the pack but is still, in a way, an unaffiliated unit. If Siberian packs were _all_ siderunners, it made sense that they were seen as living alone. “That seems like a good strategy for the nature you were living in.” 

“It was. My kind is superior to yours in many departments. We are better at survival, better fighters, better hunters, fiercer, especially compared to Progs who invaded us. They can’t even hide their own scent anymore. But we have one huge disadvantage, and that was our slow reproduction. Our numbers weren’t great since food isn’t abundant and can’t sustain many big predators like us. They kill one of us, it is felt in the whole population, you feel me? But they? Their Omegas always fucking pregnant. Popping out cubs like vermin. Eating all the food. Most of my kind weren’t killed in skirmishes, we starved to death when they came.” 

“Hey, now. Don’t compare me to fucking Progs. Those fucker piss themselves when you fucking teeth at them.” 

Sasha smirks. “Fair enough.” 

“Didn’t they starve too?” 

“Of course. But always came more. So. You don’t like to think of yourself as one of them. Tell me more of your origin? Maybe you’re not like them, yes?” 

Dean takes a sip of his beer. “You’re goddamn right I ain’t. I come from an unbroken line of Primal Packrunners in Kansas. Our lifestyle was prevalent in that area for a long time, and not until the tail end of the wars did we get decimated and overrun by refugees from other areas of the country, changing the general way of life in Kansas. I was not born yet when that took place. My parents, and my uncle Bobby all were the last survivors of the three big packs in town. All of them banded together. They fought together in the war too. Guerilla warfare, protecting the area on foot.” 

Sasha gets a faintly sly and self-satisfied expression. It’s subtle, but not completely hidden. Dean wonders if he just got baited somehow and scents discretely to discern Sasha’s feelings. And… nothing. It’s just Sasha’s scent hanging in the air as if he left a moment ago. _Sonnova…!_ Sasha speaks and bows his head apologetically before Dean has a chance to question it. “I apologise. I did not realise, but then you might have more in common with me than you have with most of your kind.” 

“What did you mean, hide their scent? You mean like Wolfcats do?” Dean asks, trying to not sound suspicious. 

“Mhm. Like Snowtiger, and Northern Scand. Or Asian Tamanegis. How you know Wolfcat does it?” 

“Because I’ve been hunted by a pack of those fuckers. I could smell one and kept veering off to avoid it, then I was suddenly surrounded by the whole fucking pack. But I could still only smell one. The fucker had been herding me. Not until they decided to let me go could I suddenly smell all of them.” 

“They decided to let you go?” Sasha asks, seeming amused about it. 

“Yup.” Dean’s not all that keen about talking about it, and his tone is short and final. 

Suddenly he can smell Sasha again, his scent is happy and pleased. _Pleased_ , not amused like Dean had thought. Dean relaxes, realising he’d been getting more tense by the minute knowing Sasha deliberately was hiding his feelings. “Very good, pretty boy. You definitely have more in common with us Siberians then the average American these days. I think we all had the ability once, but lost it when some of us settled down to start farming and keeping cattle instead of hunting. All morphs are quick to prune the genetic tree to grow new branches. For good and bad. I don’t know, this is just what I think from travelling, seeing many cultures, meeting many people, not reading guesswork about them in books. The variety of our kind is… astounding,” Sasha tells him. “You ever hunted big game without weapons?” 

“Yeah. Dad insisted. He took me and Sam out on hunting trips often, teaching us to track and kill in the wild. It was only animals, but I think he wanted us prepared if the war flared up again.” 

Sasha’s pleased purr goes deeper, louder. He smiles. “I like your dad. He sounds like a smart man.” 

“So do I,” Dean replies and smirks at the hidden, self-deprecating joke in that. “Hey so. I was wondering. I'd like to introduce you to my brother, but at the moment I don’t trust him not to stand in a corner and hiss at you if you met in person. Could you mark me up a bit before I go, so I can take you home?” 

“Sure. No problem.” 

“I’m worried about him,” Dean confesses. “I hardly see him anymore. And when he comes home he’s showered and scrubbed himself to high heavens. He said that he does it because he doesn’t want those he fucks, mostly his boss I think, to believe they have a claim on him. But I’m beginning to feel like he’s hiding something from me.” 

“So? You know where he works. You go check.” 

Dean shakes his head. “Fuck, I want to. But I don’t want to be an overprotective mother hen. He needs to learn stuff on his own too. I need to trust him or he might get,” Dean swallows and licks his lips nervously, “wanderlust.” Brothers or not, if Sam felt trapped he might react like an Omega in a bad pack or mating. Just pull up his roots and go. 

“Ah. I see. How ‘bout I check in on him? I see problem, I tell you. If not, I keep my mouth shut and let him do his thing. Pack help when help is needed, not stifle each other. That way you not betray trust.” 

“You’d do that?” 

“Of course. We’re friends, are we not?” 

“Yeah, we are. Thanks, Sash. I appreciate it.” 

“Don’t mention it.” Sasha winks. 

Later, when it’s time for Dean to go home Sasha presses him up against the door chest to chest with a firm grip on Dean’s hips. He rubs his temple and neck against Dean to mark him up like asked, but drops fangs and bites loosely on Dean’s neck and shoulder while he does it, flinging Dean into arousal all too easily. Instinct is a bitch and Dean responds in kind, marking and biting him until both their scents scream out ‘horny’, Dean’s slick and ready, and Sasha’s erection presses against his. Then, as unexpectedly as the near makeout-session began, Sasha opens the door and shoves Dean out with an impish smirk. “Now you go, and I stay to jerk off since home smell like sex.” 

“Aww, _man_. That’s not playing fair,” Dean whines. 

“I said pretty little boys playing with fire is protected by it, not treated fairly by it.” Sasha gives him a shiteating grin that makes smile-lines appear around his narrowed, slanted eyes. 

In spite of himself, Dean sniggers. “You’re such a fucking tease, Sash. Have a good night.” 

“Oh, I will,” Sasha quips and grips his crotch meaningfully. “Goodnight, pretty little Omega.” 

“Asshole,” Dean mutters goodnaturedly and waves goodbye. Honestly, he enjoys the teasing even if it leaves him wet and uncomfortable until he gets home and can change underwear. Sasha’s a friend first and foremost anyway, and Dean’s got this wonderful apparatus in his pocket with which he can call Gabe and get off with, even if they are in different countries. Or he can coax ‘Gets Away With It’ into sexting. Or, if he’s lucky, Sam’s home and can be persuaded to a little roll in the hay. 

Sam’s not at home. But there’s a note saying he’s at the bar and not to worry. Dean frowns, wondering what’s really going on. He puts it out of his mind and calls Gabe. “Guess who’s soaking his pants through with slick?” He purrs in lieu of hello. 

Afterwards,when they’ve hung up after a happy ending for both of them, he lies blissed out, the sound of Gabe’s voice still echoing in his head and Sasha’s scent in his nostrils. He thinks about today and what he’s learned about his new friend. Interesting indeed. He thinks of questions he wants to ask the Siberian when he’s suddenly unsure if he missed something in their interactions today. Something vital. Like why Sasha had concealed his scent from Dean for a short period of time. If it was just a demonstration or if Sasha is hiding something? But then the phone beeps with an incoming message from one of Gabe’s brothers, and Dean’s distracted by the text exchange that follows…

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone care to theorize what the hidden agenda is? ;)


End file.
